January, 1998:

* Special Events:

January coincided this year with the month of Ramadan. Nightly "Ramadan Evenings" were organized in a number of theaters, cultural centers, cafés, etc.. Featuring Arabic classical music concerts, poetry recitals, folklore dance representations, etc..

*Music & Theater:

- The Ashtar Theater company organized a workshop with international participation, to discuss the establishment of a theater institute in Palestine. The institute would be run by the present staff of the Ashtar Company, affiliated with Bir Zeit University, and accredited by the ministry of higher education. The institute is slated to open on November 1998, under the name of the "Mediterranean Theater Arts Institute".

- The soon to be officially opened Baladna Cultural & Community Center in El Bireh hosted the premiere of the monodrama "Ayn Qandil", starring Amer Khalil, directed by Jan Willems, written by Jackie Lubeck, & produced by Theater Day.

- Baladna also hosted recitals by the National Conservatory of Music Arab music Takht, and by the religious Jerusalem Inshad Ensemble

*Cinema:

-The Cinema Production Center organized a very successful series of children’s classics film screenings in towns and refugee camps of the Hebron and Gaza strip areas.

- The Popular Arts Center hosted an exceptional film season, showcasing recent Award winning European and US films, as well as Japanese and Egyptian classics.

* Visual Arts:

-The Jerusalem Wasiti Center organized a collective exhibit, showcasing new works by painters Tayseer Sharaf, Hussni Radwan, Khaled Hourani, Taleb Dweik, and Suleiman Mansour.

- A photo exhibit was organized by WAFA, the Palestinian press agency, at the Gaza City YMCA showcasing war pictures taken by Palestinian photographers in the last thirty years in Palestine, Lebanon & Jordan.

- A photo exhibit was organized by Bethlehem University on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Intifada.

* Literature:

- Poet Ahmad Dahbour published a new collection of Poems titled "Houna, Hounak" (Here, there). The collection was published by Jordan’s Dar el Shorouq publishing house.

- The winter (#54) issue of Al Karmel literary journal was published, featuring poetry by Ghassan Zaqtan, excerpts from Abd-el-Rahman Munif’s new novel "Ard el Sawaad" (Land of darkness), & articles by Mahmoud Darwish, Salim Tamari, A.B. Yehoshuah, Zakaria Mohammed, Liana Badr, Faycal Darraj, etc..

- The documentary "Writers of the XXth Century: Mahmoud Darwish", was premiered at Jerusalem’s National Theater. The film is directed by Simone Bitton, for the French FR3 TV channel, which is commissioning a series on the major writers of this century.

- Two bookfairs were held in the towns of Salfit & Tulkarm, featuring recent publications by Palestinian, Egyptian & Jordanian publishing houses.

- Poet Mahmoud Darwish gave a press conference as head of the General Palestinian Writers’Union (PWU). The conference sought to put an end to the controversy caused by December’s decision by the Arab Writer’s Union to exclude Palestine from its membership; for political reasons (opposition to the peace process). The conference was the result of a meeting of the PWU in Ramallah, announcing a general meeting of the PWU in the fall of 1998, with Diaspora and local members, to reorganize the PWU. The conference also denounced the exclusion decision.